Chapter 23

  Jake parked at the curb, gazing at the ten-story building across the street, the mission’s designated location. Stepping out of the pickup truck, he took a moment to observe the structure. Although it appeared nondescript among the city buildings, he was aware that it harbored numerous ex-human mutants. With his shotgun in hand, he crossed the street aered the building through the frorance.

  Jake was immediately ambushed by two walkers upoering the building, but dispatg them posed little challenge. As he progressed through the first floor, he entered more mutants along the way. Despite spotting the staircase that led to the upper levels, he refrained from asding, as he o clear out all threats on the current floor first. Methodically advang through the building, he ralized every mutant in his path until he arrived at the final room. With his shotgun held at the ready, Jake ehe room, prepared for whatever might be lurking inside.

  He found himself in a spacious but mostly empty room. There were a couple more mutants ihey lurched toward him, but before their cwed hands could tear into him, his shotgun thuwice, dealing with each of the two creatures. He sed the room for more threats, pointing the shotgun wherever he looked. Spotting no more eo kill, he redirected his attention to the ter of the room. Hanging from a silky rope attached to the ceiling, there was a rge, co-like object that caught his eye. White in color and the size of a full-grown human, it dangled close to the floor, almost toug it. The cable supp it resembled a robust spider’s silk thread, thick as a rope and seemingly as sturdy as steel.

  He took a small step toward the strange co but didn’t dare to get too close to it. He didn’t know what to expect from it. It was the very first time he’d seen such a thing, so he had to exercise caution. Jake peered into the co. The silky white surface artly transparent, allowing him to see that there was an ex-human mutant inside of it. The creature was motionless, its eyes shut as if in a deep slumber. The pod held transparent liquid, in which the mutant floated.

  Though Jake had a pretty good idea about what the co-like object was, he took out his PDA to s it anyway. REPLICATION POD (LEVEL 1). The device offered no further details on the co. heless, it was one of the targets he had to find and elimihin the building.

  The mutant ihe pod suddenly jerked. Its eyes snapped open, and its head turoward him. Jake saw its evil eyes fix on him. The mutant bared its teeth in a fierarl and suddenly jerked its body. Jake instinctively leaped back from the co. The mutant raised its cwed hands, pressed them against the inner wall of the pod, and pushed, causing the outer wall of the pod to bulge outward. He anticipated it would tear, but to his surprise, it remained intact. The replication pod proved to be more durable than it appeared.

  The mutant ihe co kept struggling to break free but was uo escape. The mutant appeared too weak, with slow and sluggish movements. Upon the creature closely, Jake realized it had been developing ihe pod for some time, but the growth process seemed disproportiohe mutant’s upper body appeared to be nearly formed, while its legs were still in the process of molding. In trast to the rest of its body, the legs seemed disproportionately small and underdeveloped. He deduced the replication pods were responsible for creating mutants by growing them from iion to maturity. He figured that ohe process was plete, the co would release the fully developed mutant.

  Only he wasn’t going to wait for it to happen. He brought up his on and poi at the replication pod in front of him. As if anticipating his move, the wicked mutant within the co snarled and cwed at the pod’s interior in a bid to break free. Jake squeezed the trigger. The pellets tore into the pod, ripping it in half. The transparent liquid spttered across the floor, prompting Jake to swiftly jump back to avoid any tact with it. The partially developed mutant and the shredded pieces of the pod flopped onto the wet floor.

  The mutant was wounded but still alive. It began to crawl toward him, struggling to find purchase o surface. He fihe creature off with another shot. He then aimed at the remnants of the pod hanging from the ceiling and fired, obliterating what remained.

  After the frontation, Jake checked his PDA for the mission update. It indicated that one replication pod had beeroyed and the first floor was now secured. To plete the main objective, he had to eliminate four more pods. Additionally, to fulfill one of the two sedary objectives, he had to exterminate all the mutants iing the remaining floors of the building.

  He was certain that all the mutants he had previously eliminated would be revived at the start of the day. The question lingering in his mind was whether the revival process was somehow lio the replication pods. Perhaps by destroying the remaining cos, he could prevent the ex-humans from being recreated again, at least within this building. However, Jake sidered the possibility that the system itself was responsible for recreating mutants at the start of each day, simir to respawning items in looted buildings. If this was the case, as he suspected, then the destroyed replication pods would likely be regeed the following day as well. It was also possible that the replication pods were recreated less frequently, maybe once every few days. However, the only way to uhe truth behind this mystery was to revisit the building at a ter time.

  Jake searched the first floor for loot. He found some ammo as well as several mana beads, from which he promptly extracted mana. In one of the rooms, he discovered peared to be another mana bead, but it was at least twice as rge as the others he had found. Ihe mana bead, mesmerizing bluish magical energy danced and swirled beautifully, casting an enting glow around it. He used his PDA to s and analyze the item. MANA MARBLE: 250 MP (ON). With a mental and, he absorbed the magical energy stored within the marble, increasing his mana reserves by 250 points. He dropped the y marble, and it shattered into numerous smaller pieces upon tact with the floor.

  After expl the remaining rooms on the first floor and finding no further points of i, Jake retraced his steps back to the stairs that led to the upper levels of the building.